After the meeting, Roland left Barov alone.
"As you can see, at present, there are important people in the chemical laboratory and the Graycastle Industrial Company. Next, I plan to produce soap and perfume on a large scale. These also require a lot of manpower." The prince said bluntly, "Wait for most of the townspeople. If you pass the primary education assessment, you will get at least next year, and there are only 600 or 700 people when you are fully counted, which is not enough. I need more people."
"If recruited from the fortress..."
"No," Roland interrupted. "After the city is built next year, the fortress will be integrated with the town. This is equivalent to taking out the money in the left pocket and putting it in the right pocket. I need more people outside the western border."
"This..." Barov wondered, "I'm afraid it's not so easy to solve. If you go to other cities to find people, the local lord will not sit idly by."
"Don't go to the city," Roland put his finger in the glass, dipped some ice water, and gestured on the table, "I wonder if you have noticed that since the end of the Demon Moon, Greycastle has been in a state of war. Among them. Including Tifeko attacking the southern border several times, causing the Eagle City to burn down, and the surrounding villages and small towns were severely damaged. Then the expedition to the northern border, depriving Duke Ace of his title and territory for treason. Finally, the east This sea attack," he slammed the table twice, leaving a cloud of water stains, "has greatly affected Haifeng County, Golden Spike City, and Raven Castle, not to mention the surrounding small towns. Just from the number of people who fled to the capital, you can see how heavy the loss is."
"You mean..." Barov looked thoughtful.
"Propaganda out of the Western Territory," the prince wiped out the water. "In the past six months, only the Western Territory has been at peace, there has been no forced recruitment, and no war has been attacked. Especially the first point of Tifeko's use of civilians to fight, certainly No one can guarantee that this kind of thing will not fall on their heads next time, so a stable place isolated from the war is the main point of our propaganda.”
"I probably understand," he mused. "You intend to attract civilians from other towns and villages by making promises of not forcibly recruiting, not doing hard labor, and at the same time providing shelter, food, and stable jobs?"
"Almost," Roland nodded with a smile, active thinking and strong receptive ability have always been the advantages of assistant ministers, "and we must also focus on promoting the favorable treatment that literate people can enjoy. I think there will definitely be some corners in these places. The knights and nobles are willing to come to the West to try their luck."
Whether it is a village or a town, it is almost the domain of the minor nobles. In times of peace, even if the land is barren and the management is not good, guarding a few acres of fields will always be able to fill one's stomach. However, if the population loss is severe during the turmoil, life will be difficult to continue. At this time, there is a safe place, and most people should be tempted. Anyway, even if the territory is left unattended, it will not be occupied by others. After this period of time, it is good to go back with money and mercenaries to take over the territory.
As for how to publicize, he believed that the other party had his own way.
"But Your Highness, in this way, it is another expense to arrange for these people, and the purchase of food cannot be interrupted," Barov hesitated, "In case of any accident on the caravan's side, the city hall treasury will soon be dried up."
"Well... what you said also makes sense," Roland touched his chin. The most important task of a new political force is to establish prestige and confidence in the hearts of the people. If you suddenly fall into the predicament of not being able to pay salaries, the good situation will turn sharply. " Well, you go back and make a plan first, and wait until the caravan and the town complete the next month's transaction and the treasury is full before implementing it."
"As ordered, Your Highness," Barov stroked his chest.
After explaining the task, Roland returned to the office and began to think about how to complete Margery's balloon order.
The unit price of a thousand golden dragons is higher than that of a steam engine, but its cost is much lower. The airbags are mainly drawn by Soraya, while hemp ropes and bamboo baskets are cheap. In fact, Roland has already trial-produced a simple sample in the yard of the arsenal: a hydrogen balloon that can carry both Lightning and Maisie to the sky at the same time.
After repeated consideration, he finally abandoned the hot air balloon scheme. Gas needs to be obtained through dry distillation of coal. The equipment occupies a large area and it is very troublesome to manufacture. In addition, coal has to be imported from other towns. Small-scale production is extremely uneconomical, far inferior to that of hydrogen. As convenient and easy to obtain.
The trial product is made of one-sided water coating, and the paper behind it is burned after painting, so that the entire airbag is almost weightless and has excellent flexibility. In the test, the inflated balloon was not afraid of rain, impact, and fire. Maisie turned into various birds and pecked at it without leaving any traces. Only with an iron needle can it pierce through the millimeter thick coating. Due to its extremely light weight, a hydrogen balloon with a diameter of about two meters can carry an adult into the air.
The only difficulty is how to solve the problem of filling the high-pressure hydrogen cylinder.
The DC motor used for hydrogen production by electrolysis of water must not be sold. One motor can inflate all hydrogen balloons after being connected to a steam engine, which is obviously not cost-effective. If you want to continuously earn golden dragons from big dog owners, you must have high-pressure gas cylinders that can be repeatedly inflated.
The gas cylinder itself is not difficult, and the material is not enough to make up the wall thickness. Both pig iron and wrought iron can be used. Anyway, with Anna there, precision machining is not a problem. The key is that the pressure of the gas storage cylinders in the later generations is above 20mpa. It is undoubtedly a fantasy to use a pump to get in. Ten unicorn arms are useless, at least a high-pressure air pump is required. If the pressure in the bottle is not enough, the hydrogen balloon cannot be filled at all.
The high-pressure air pump is divided into piston compression and turbo compression. The former belongs to the internal combustion engine technology tree, and the latter belongs to the category of turbines. No matter which one is developed, it is a time-consuming and labor-intensive project. In the evening, Roland finally came up with the simplest solution: self-inflation in the bottle.
What inspired him was a piece of news he had read before crossing the road: a merchant selling hydrogen balloons on the street used a modified liquefied gas tank to store hydrogen, and the explosion caused a tragedy. The reason is that the merchant directly reacts dilute sulfuric acid and aluminum to produce hydrogen in the bottle, without calculating the reaction amount. As a result, the pressure in the tank is too large, which directly smashes the tank.
The method of self-inflating is to pour dilute sulfuric acid and active metal into the bottle to replace the hydrogen. Zinc is commonly used in the laboratory, and aluminum produces the most hydrogen with equal weight, but neither of them exists in this era, so Roland still intends to use iron to react Lucia to separate iron with extremely high purity, and the reaction speed at room temperature is slow. The problem can be improved by heating and increasing the contact area (such as iron flakes, iron powder), and a coating inside can resist the corrosion of the bottle body by the acid.
Thinking of this, he immediately drew a simple sketch on the paper. In order to reduce air leakage, the high-pressure gas cylinder should be as a whole as possible, so the bottle body is integrated, only a raised thread hole is left at the top, which can be screwed. into the valve with valve.
After injecting the reactant from the hole and tightening the gas nozzle, the continuously generated gas has nowhere to go, and the pressure in the bottle can reach a very considerable value. As long as the valve is unscrewed during use, the hydrogen gas will pour out and rush into the air bag. Re-flushing is also very convenient, remove the gas nozzle, dry the water, clean out the ferrous sulfate crystals inside, and then pour the reactant again.
Considering that dilute sulfuric acid is also an alchemy product, the price of aerated gas obviously cannot be set too low.
It's fixed at 50 gold dragons for one charge, and ten charges for one charge, Roland thought. (., Your support is my biggest motivation.)